Prospect Theater Company's evening of one-acts, albeit presented in front of the set for their production of Georg Büchner's Danton's Death, showed a consistently high level of performance.
Elaine May's Adaptation, directed by Marlo Hunter, is an extended joke that eventually, through no fault of the company's, started to go a little flat. A TV game show is a metaphor for life, as Phil Benson (Tommy Dewey) is born, goes through the promising turmoil of childhood and adolescence, and ends up just like his boring father. An oily game-show host (Victor Verhaeghe) and two enthusiastic assistants (Todd Barry and Mandy Steckelberg) walk Benson through his life, acting out other characters (or caricatures) as they occur. Despite some priceless lines ("In this school, Mr. Benson, we teach the children that no one is colored") and slick directing, there's not enough material here to fill out nearly an hour.
Harold Pinter's Mountain Language, while not devoid of humor, is a serious piece about oppression. In it a Young Woman (Sonya Livanetz) visiting her husband (Tom Martin) in jail is not allowed to speak to him in her own language (they belong to an oppressed cultural minority, modeled on the Kurds in Turkey). The piece is elliptical (what do you expect from Pinter?), with some genuine "Pinteresque" moments (as when the Officer pontificates about the dog's stating its name, or not, before biting). Director David Schildkret made much of a few rolling chairs with strings between them, which represented at various times hallways and a prison visiting area. The costumes (uncredited) included a delightfully layered outfit for the mutely suffering Young Woman. The Sergeant (Etya Dudko), albeit a slight young woman, conveyed as much threat with her dapper umbrella as a man could have with a nightstick. Alexander Dohderty, in suit and brown gloves, was an officious and condescending Officer. Stephen Francis was a comic, cockney Guard, and Bella Cohen a bitterly hopeless Elderly Woman. This was a chilling portrait of the banality of evil. (Also featuring Harry Kellerman; sound design, Matthew T. Lebe.)
Aaron Sorkin's Hidden in This Picture proposes that two old friends, a writer (Tony Vallés, as Jeff) and director (Jaime Vallés, as Robert), are wrapping up the shoot of their first movie. The last shot remains, and the production manager (Ames Adamson, as Reuben) is about to bust a gasket over the cost overruns of the film. It develops that this has not been a good movie, mainly because Jeff wrote a lazy script (full of "Yale Drama crap") and he and Robert caved in to all the demands of the studio. But Robert's final shot, planned and rehearsed in extremis, will be a winner, with hundreds of extras running through a carefully composed frame. Unfortunately, God sends three cows to stand in the shot, which they would not have done on a Marine base in Guam (they're shooting in upstate New York). How Jeff, Robert, and Reuben react to this piece of divine contempt is the point of the play -- Robert is horrified; then Jeff convinces him that they can say the cows were intentional, thereby having their revenge on the studio; then Reuben says they can matte out the cows in an afternoon, but they convince him the cows are really art.
Adamson offered an amusing, if almost over-the-top, interpretation of a blustering and effeminate production manager. Jaime and Tony Vallés were more down-to-Earth as the creative team. Craig Wilson was amusing as Craig, the thick-as-a-brick assistant who thinks he is calling the shot -- when in fact Robert has had the cameras running for minutes.
Either the denouement was excessively long, or the setup was: this was another play that spent too much time retreading the same ground. But if this was a one-trick pony, it was an amusing trick.
The lighting for the evening (uncredited) included some low-level lights that conveyed Kafkaesque menace, with looming shadows, in the Pinter and an impressive sunset in the Sorkin.
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Adaptation |
Mountain Language |
Hidden in This Picture |
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Writing |
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Directing |
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Acting |
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Set |
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Costumes |
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Lighting/Sound |
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Copyright 2002 John Chatterton